Tag Archives: observation

Freedom isn’t about being reckless or heartless.
Freedom is letting go of everything that weighs heavy on your soul.
Freedom is opening your eyes to new experiences and ways of knowing.
Freedom is about not allowing failure or struggle to discourage you.
Freedom is being comfortable with your own thoughts, with your actions, with you.

I want to love life. And I mean really love life. The kind of love where I want to skip in the morning when I’m barely awake, stay up as late as I can laughing, enjoy every single day just because it exists. The kind of love where I want to shower the world in hugs and kisses.
I just want to really love life. I want to be happy and joyful and hopeful. I want to believe that my best is good enough. I want to make others believe that they are more than good enough. I want to be the kind of person I sometimes mistakenly think I am. I want to be certain that the trivial things don’t matter. I want to approach challenges with a curious, unafraid, confident mind.

I really do hope that the bookstore does not become extinct. I want the future to feel what I feel when I walk inside and stay a while. I really do hope that paper books do not become things of the past. I want the future to know what it’s like to curl up in bed with a good book.

I don’t like reflecting on my days, weeks, or years. I have realized that the reason I dislike reminiscing is because I remember so little. This realization makes me sad, because I know I have had such wonderful experiences, I have met extraordinary people, and I have made memories with family and friends. I am filled with great sorrow – as I cannot seem to remember so many things that have filled my days, my life, my heart. The good and the bad both disappear from my memory. I sit and I wonder, but I remain clueless.

Lost. That’s how I feel. I feel like life has tricked me into happiness and tricked me into anguish, but has not granted my brain the permission to access the memories.
I feel like time has left me with the recollection of experienced emotions, but has deprived me of any sort of context.

This involuntary dismissal of the past has taught me a very important lesson:

All success and all failure is temporary.
All joy and all sorrow is passing.
Time is finite and opportunity is limitless.
So do what you need to do and do it for you,
And later, when you cannot recall exactly what happened,
You’ll know that you were truly happy.

What I believed until about five minutes ago:
Nobody needs anybody else. I mean, sure, we like having certain people in our lives and cannot imagine our worlds without them. But we can and will survive without their presence, and they will and can survive without ours. It’s depressing and we don’t like acknowledging that our relationships are not necessary, lasting, irreplaceable. We get used to people. Their presence in our memories makes them appear to be essential characters in the story we call Life. Without the characters and their interactions with ourselves – we cease to believe in the existence of the story, and in the lonesome state, we discard the value associated with our own character. Regardless, we live and breathe on. The innate desire to live ignites our fallen spirits, and we find happiness in other places. We build new relationships, and once again – we believe we need them. Perhaps it’s difficult to admit that we are creatures forever solitary, and thus, we attempt to forge needs – and with them comes an irrational dependence on mortal relationships.

What I believe now:
Needs are those things which are required for our well-being. Needs are not necessarily only the substances and conditions we need to simply survive, but also conditions under which we have the ability to thrive. When one is in “need” – one requires some sort of relief. Therefore, needs are not clearly defined. So do we need certain people? Yes. We need their love, compassion, their friendship. We need their perfections and flaws, we need their criticism, thoughts, support, and presence in our lives. We know we need them when they are not present – we feel it, we hate it, we ache for their love. Although life goes on, regardless of their whereabouts, we know something is not right when they are gone. Just because we learn to live without them, doesn’t mean we don’t need them. As much as we tell ourselves that we can be completely independent, I don’t think we ever actually believe ourselves. Life is this unifying experience – we’re all new to it, we don’t really know what we’re doing, and we don’t really know where we’re going. We’re in it together and we need each other, because even though happiness is a personal endeavor, it’s easier to find when surrounded by those who have become indispensable to our worlds.

I guess the way to get a million followers is to write about exciting things that the majority of bloggers/blog readers find either witty, funny, and/or insightful.
These posts should also probably include a disproportionate amount of photographs, a few words, and probably a numbered list of some sort. Also, pure entertainment should be the primary goal of every post. Nobody really likes to talk about things that matter, because they are so afraid of disagreement and debate. Everyone is afraid to hurt everyone else’s feelings, and “attack” everyone else’s beliefs. The internet is known to be this great source of knowledge and a significant manifestation of progress. But oh my God, when did we become so shallow? When did moral relativism and dismissal of this idea of “truth” become so widely accepted. Don’t we care about our beliefs? Don’t we care about the values of others? What’s the point of believing in anything, if we go around saying things like: “We’ll never know the truth, so we might as well drop this argument”? Sure, it’s fine to believe in different things, and sure, we may never know the answers to many of our questions. But by rejecting the existence of truth, aren’t we also dismissing our own personal beliefs?

Personal beliefs are sensitive issues, but by no means are belief systems the only topics of shallow discourse online. Let’s take celebrity Twitter accounts. A celebrity says something offensive [I’m sure you can think of many of these occurrences, and therefore I won’t list names] about either politics, socio-economic issues, a TV show, another celebrity, etc. and fans go nuts. Social media sites have brought celebrities closer to their fans, but have also forced the people involved to put on facades. Celebrities who say things the majority of people do not like later apologize or have to have some big-time interview explaining why they said what they said. The problem, though, is not in these celebrities. It’s in the fans. Why are fans constantly criticizing successful human beings? Why must these humans beings think and talk in such a way as to not offend anybody? Why do we expect public figures to be “better” than regular citizens? We want to see these stars as real life people, but we really hate when they aren’t perfect and say things that we don’t like. But most importantly, why are we so afraid of allowing people to voice the things they truly think, regardless of whether or not we think their opinions are correct? Why are we so sensitive?

There are many people out there who have world views that you and I may find to be absolutely ridiculous, yet it is ignorant to silence them: because they exist.
And when views exist they have power, regardless of whether or not they adhere to our standards.

Why are we so afraid of our own thoughts?
Why do we fear our own humanity?

There is so much to say,
But so little silence.
So many thoughts –
But sleep creeps in, and then they are lost
Lost, lost, lost forever in dreamland.

Every confusion, every mistake –
Speaks and never ceases to attack
The helpless mind, that has no alternative but to call it a day,
Admits defeat, but refuses to quit trying…
Tomorrow, tomorrow: thoughts will be free.

But there is no time to let one’s mind wander.
And there is so little courage to grant freedom to words.
Everyday, tedious tasks occupy ninety-nine percent of our thinking faculties,
Everyday, our own judgmental inclinations seal our lips and freeze our tongues-
Yet we continue to justify our silence to ourselves, claiming it arises out of fear of criticism from others.